Day 9 of our visit to Norway. It poured and poured today! It was a driving day, thankfully. So we just took our time and visited a few landmarks on our way. Having seen the small village of Undredal across the fjord from Aurland we thought we would backtrack a little and take a look, stopping momentarily at Flam on the way. Flam is where the cruise ships depart and is fairly forgettable. Underedal on the other hand is a very small and quaint village which is famous for its goat cheese, though we decided to focus on the views of the fjord at ground level. Spectacular, even in the rain.
We then headed off towards Heggenes passing through the world’s longest road tunnel – and its not surprising to us that the Norwegians built it. This is indeed the land of tunnels!
To relieve the tedium – and maybe take the edge off the claustrophobia – there was a light “event” at every 6km mark. This was the last of them. I think they have a Northern Lights theme in mind!
Next stop was Lærdalsøyri which is a town famous for its pretty wooden houses – and yes, they were very pretty!
After a quick bite to eat we continued on to what is described as the “best preserved” stave church – it seems each township wants to make a claim to fame for its stave church. This one is in a township called Borgund.
However, as we drove further down the road our attention was attracted to the very modest stave church of Oye. We decided to stop and were delightfully surprised to be greeted by an elderly lady in traditional costume. She offered to guide us around the Church and it became obvious to us very quickly that this was a real labour of love for her. She had a real feeling for her Church and was committed to bringing it’s history alive. She was absolutely adorable as was the Church which was probably the simplest stave church we had seen – and possibly the closest to how a stave church would have looked in the Middle Ages.
It was a treacherous drive from there to Heggenes with rain, poor roads and dodgy GPS instructions. But while we were stopped waiting for various roadworks, I managed to catch some beautiful views.
Finally, close to evening we arrived, pretty tired and glad to get out of the car! Looking forward to a drier day tomorrow…perhaps!
